Is Facebook Dying like MySpace?

Social Media Wars Heating Up; Google+ vs Facebook and the Ghost of MySpace

MUNCIE, IN - There was a time when "Tom" was everyone's friend. This was at a point after Friendster had been on the scene for a while but never caught on. Then, suddenly, Myspace was everywhere. Companies appended their Myspace page to their commercials and advertisements letting people know they were hip and cool. Then Myspace was purchased by Rupert Murdoch for quite a bit of money. Over the years, though, in a matter of months maybe, Myspace waned in popularity. It was suddenly known as "the ghetto" of the social media landscape.

Who was the hip new kid in town? Facebook, of course. It was an exclusive club at first - you had to have a college email account to get in - but over the years in order to grow, they opened up to everyone. It's FREE and always will be they proudly exclaimed. And suddenly the word on the 'net was that Facebook was where it's at. And people started signing up and finding old friends - and new ones. Facebook had games and a lot of cool features.

There were - and still are - many privacy concerns, however. And lately, Google has come around and released Google+ - their answer to the social experience on the web. While still in its infant stages of development (aka BETA!) there are a lot of people who are moving over to Google+.

One of the biggest differences is that you do not have to lump all of your friends into the same "social circle" like you do at Facebook. Instead, you can drop your friends into "circles" at Google+ so that you can easily send out messages (or embarrassing photos) to ONLY those people you want to see them.

Does your boss really need to hear about your weekend partying? Do you care about your coworkers Mafia Wars or Farmville addiction or "conquests"?

While the shift may take a while - months or years even - there is a wave of dissatisfaction beginning to form around Facebook - much like what happened to MySpace just a few short years ago.

Having 500+ million people switch to a new social network is not going to be easy, but if anyone has the resources and know-how on how to do it, it is Google.

Facebook recently heralded their cool new "chat" feature, but not everyone is as excited as Zuckerberg about the "cool" news.  An example, courtesy of Hejibits.com.

There is still a lot to play out in the months and years to come, but a Washington Post article recently stated that "Newly reinvigorated by the launch of Google+, “MySpace Tom” has become a social power user..." which is interesting news to many people for many different reasons.

Facebook may still be going strong and Google+ growth may have slowed a little, but the "social media wars" are far from over. With half a billion users comes a lot of ad revenue.